Roy Hodgson congratulates Newcastle United on ‘freak’ moment v Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson says his side fell “woefully short” in their 4-0 defeat to Newcastle United.

It took just four minutes for the deadlock to be broken through Jacob Murphy before goals from Anthony Gordon and Sean Longstaff made it 3-0 heading into half-time. Callum Wilson then added the Magpies’ fourth in the 66th minute.

Prior to the game, Palace had conceded just seven goals in their opening eight Premier League matches and sat just one behind United in the league table. But when the two sides met at St James’ Park, the visitors were no match for Eddie Howe’s in-form side.

Hodgson said: “I’d rather not think about it if I had to sum it up! We came here thinking and believing we could give Newcastle a good game and maybe make life a little bit difficult for them but we said woefully short in that department.

“I thought our first half was nowhere near what we’ve been able to do up to now and what I thought we would still do despite the fact this being such a tough ask against such a good team because they are a hard team to defend against but it didn’t work out.

“And at half-time we were looking at salvaging something from the game and not going away totally and utterly dejected because we conceded even more than the four we conceded.

“Nothing really positive from our point of view but I’m pretty certain you’ve just been listening to Eddie Howe so I would think you’ve got all the positivity and superlatives you need so you don’t need much from me!”

Hodgson felt Murphy’s opener was a “freak goal” after the winger’s cross-cum-shot looped over goalkeeper Sam Johnstone but had no complaints over the final result.

“I thought we were somewhat unfortunate with the first goal, of course,” the former England boss added. “That didn’t help. That freak goal, I think. Well taken, beautiful touch by [Kieran] Trippier - congratulations.

“If we scored I’d have been delighted but it’s a tough goal to have against you after a few minutes because that’s not one that has come about because you’ve got it so totally wrong defensively.

“The game was over by half-time.”

Newcastle’s win extended their unbeaten run to eight matches ahead of Wednesday evening’s Champions League fixture at home to Borussia Dortmund.